Re: [Wikimediaau-l] Family History related Australian biographies on Wikipedia

[Leigh Blackall]

In my experience with running workshops, I try to get people editing
immediately, in Userspace, as this is generally what they expected, or if
not, they're drawn in by the hands on. The discussions still happen ("if
anyone can edit..") but they're in the context of more experience. I don't
know if this is useful or even comprehensive or up to date, but here's the
page I maintain with help files and other resources for the workshops I
run: https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikipedia_editing_workshops

On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 12:39 PM, Paul Foord  wrote:

> Thanks Gnangarra and Kerry, the policy issues are important as you both
> noted - notability, CoI, Copyright/IP.
>
> A couple of articles that illustrate some of the issues are
> * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowman_brothers and
> * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallach_brothers
>
> I am interested in anything to help. The time was suggested by the
> Society, Kerry, I will keep in mind what you have written.
>
> Paul
>
>
> On 24 January 2016 at 18:49, Kerry Raymond 
> wrote:
>
>> Paul
>>
>>
>>
>> I talk to local history groups which often have a cross-over with family
>> history (often their ancestors lived in that local area).
>>
>>
>>
>> I agree with you re Trove obits (I’ve created or expanded articles with
>> these many times). The main problem is that the language is a bit flowery
>> and needs to be toned down. Also, reflecting the times they were written,
>> those obits tend to be  somewhat sexist, e.g. it is commonplace to refer to
>> the wife/widow and female daughters without any mention of their names (or
>> as Mrs Fred Smith), whereas male relatives are generally named. I try to
>> ensure that both men and women are described more equally.The obits can
>> also very insensitive to Indigenous occupation of Australia prior to
>> European settlement. Words  like “pioneer” and “discovered” usually need to
>> be qualified in that regard, e.g.  “European settler” or “discovered by the
>> British” or similar. Direct quotes can (in moderation) retain politically
>> incorrect language, but I’d tend to do this only a view to making a point
>> about the different attitudes of those times.
>>
>>
>>
>> I agree entirely that articles written by family historians about family
>> members  can be problematic. While they often have copious sources and
>> those sources are often reliable, those sources tend to be comprehensive by
>> their nature  (everyone has a birth certificate, everyone buried in a
>> cemetery is listed in the burial register, etc). And in country towns,
>> everyone gets an obit in the local newspaper. So it’s a situation where the
>> general principle of having a lot of reliable sources doesn’t always equal
>> being notable.  The claim to fame is often pretty marginal – the first
>> settler in Smallville, the secretary of the Smallville football club for 30
>> years, etc. I try to divert them into adding these claims into the
>> [[Smallville]] article, usually in the History section. It’s also worth
>> pointing out that your ancestors are a Conflict of Interest situation and
>> that is a good reason not to create articles about them (admittedly it’s
>> more a Conflict of Interest in the sense of “your ancestor is more
>> interesting to you than to everyone else”).
>>
>>
>>
>> Regarding your 1.5 hour timeplan, I would suggest you are overly
>> ambitious about how much you can cover in that time. Firstly there are
>> always a lot of basic facts about Wikipedia that people want to know and
>> need to know. In particular, “if anyone can edit it, isn’t going to be full
>> of rubbish?”. You will need to spend a little time explaining how Wikipedia
>> manages the vandalism and incorrect information problem. Do not assume that
>> they know how Wikipedia “works” behind the scenes, because they don’t.
>> Secondly it takes a lot of time to teach them the basics of editing.  You
>> do not say whether you will be teaching the source editor or the new Visual
>> Editor. Having taught using the source editor many times and once with the
>> VE, I think people will learn the VE much faster and it’s my plan to teach
>> the VE going forward. There are some gotchas to teaching the VE – you can’t
>> edit a Talk page with VE, you never want them to open an infobox (they will
>> be exposed to source editing) and just about every piece of documentation
>> in Wikipedia assumes you are using the source editor L BUT they will be
>> able to make basic edits much more quickly.
>>
>>
>>
>> I assume you are talking about hands-on editing. If not, I think give up
>> now on teaching them how to edit and just give them a talk on Wikipedia
>> instead. It’s hard enough to teach them to contribute with a computer in
>> front of them; I doubt you can do it with slides alone.
>>
>>
>>
>> A family history group is an older group of people (so are local history
>> groups). You will also have some people whose idea of “basic computer
>> 

Re: [Wikimediaau-l] Family History related Australian biographies on Wikipedia

[Kerry Raymond]

Paul

 

I talk to local history groups which often have a cross-over with family 
history (often their ancestors lived in that local area).

 

I agree with you re Trove obits (I’ve created or expanded articles with these 
many times). The main problem is that the language is a bit flowery and needs 
to be toned down. Also, reflecting the times they were written, those obits 
tend to be  somewhat sexist, e.g. it is commonplace to refer to the wife/widow 
and female daughters without any mention of their names (or as Mrs Fred Smith), 
whereas male relatives are generally named. I try to ensure that both men and 
women are described more equally.The obits can also very insensitive to 
Indigenous occupation of Australia prior to European settlement. Words  like 
“pioneer” and “discovered” usually need to be qualified in that regard, e.g.  
“European settler” or “discovered by the British” or similar. Direct quotes can 
(in moderation) retain politically incorrect language, but I’d tend to do this 
only a view to making a point about the different attitudes of those times. 

 

I agree entirely that articles written by family historians about family 
members  can be problematic. While they often have copious sources and those 
sources are often reliable, those sources tend to be comprehensive by their 
nature  (everyone has a birth certificate, everyone buried in a cemetery is 
listed in the burial register, etc). And in country towns, everyone gets an 
obit in the local newspaper. So it’s a situation where the general principle of 
having a lot of reliable sources doesn’t always equal being notable.  The claim 
to fame is often pretty marginal – the first settler in Smallville, the 
secretary of the Smallville football club for 30 years, etc. I try to divert 
them into adding these claims into the [[Smallville]] article, usually in the 
History section. It’s also worth pointing out that your ancestors are a 
Conflict of Interest situation and that is a good reason not to create articles 
about them (admittedly it’s more a Conflict of Interest in the sense of “your 
ancestor is more interesting to you than to everyone else”). 

 

Regarding your 1.5 hour timeplan, I would suggest you are overly ambitious 
about how much you can cover in that time. Firstly there are always a lot of 
basic facts about Wikipedia that people want to know and need to know. In 
particular, “if anyone can edit it, isn’t going to be full of rubbish?”. You 
will need to spend a little time explaining how Wikipedia manages the vandalism 
and incorrect information problem. Do not assume that they know how Wikipedia 
“works” behind the scenes, because they don’t. Secondly it takes a lot of time 
to teach them the basics of editing.  You do not say whether you will be 
teaching the source editor or the new Visual Editor. Having taught using the 
source editor many times and once with the VE, I think people will learn the VE 
much faster and it’s my plan to teach the VE going forward. There are some 
gotchas to teaching the VE – you can’t edit a Talk page with VE, you never want 
them to open an infobox (they will be exposed to source editing) and just about 
every piece of documentation in Wikipedia assumes you are using the source 
editor :( BUT they will be able to make basic edits much more quickly.

 

I assume you are talking about hands-on editing. If not, I think give up now on 
teaching them how to edit and just give them a talk on Wikipedia instead. It’s 
hard enough to teach them to contribute with a computer in front of them; I 
doubt you can do it with slides alone.

 

A family history group is an older group of people (so are local history 
groups). You will also have some people whose idea of “basic computer skills” 
and yours will be very different. A lot of older people send and receive email 
and use Google to search the web and write newsletters for their golf club in 
Microsoft word without managing to learn how to do something like 
copy-and-paste. It’s hard to make a citation without some copy-and-paste, 
particularly copying the URL for web citations. Don’t expect them to know what 
a URL is either (try “web address” while pointing to it on the screen in the 
browser). Many are not accustomed to using multiple applications/windows at the 
same time, so having the Wikipedia article open for editing in one window and 
the source material in another may be a new experience for them.

 

With any group, you will have issues with copying material from other websites 
and wanting to upload photos of unknown provenance. Most do not understand 
copyright at all. Some will not have had a level of education where they were 
expected to use citations and won’t know what they are and why they matter. 
Even those with university degrees may be completely unfamiliar with inline 
citation, being accustomed to just listing their sources at the end without 
linking them to the claims (particularly true for those in the humanities).

Re: [Wikimediaau-l] Family History related Australian biographies on Wikipedia

[Gnangarra]

Hi Paul

This sounds like a great initiative WMAU committee isnt aware of any
co-ordinated project along these lines the nearest would be
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiTown/Toodyaypedia/stage_II_worksheet
which was done as part of the Toodyaypedia project.  For some people they
might actually like the idea of a QR code to share the person story.

The biggest issue will be getting the followup support they will need I
suggest you introduce them to WP:AWNB as place to get quick answers and
just to be careful they should be aware of COI .


Let us know when your talking and we will be on the watch for new editors.


On 24 January 2016 at 12:36, Paul Foord  wrote:

> Hi all
>
> At a meeting of the Genealogy SA Research and Development Committee I
> offered to provide a session on writing biographies for Wikipedia.
>
> Triggers for this were:
> - my experience finding obituaries and other sources in Trove that
> appeared to justify an article, or allowed significant expansion of a stub.
> Often for politicians and sportspeople there is already a stub that can be
> filled out.
> - finding that a number of the articles apparently written by family
> historians were not encyclopedic in their selection of information nor well
> presented.
>
> It looks like there will be a 1.5 hour session:
> - an intro to WP
> - familiarisation with Wikiproject Biography (WP:Notability)
> - WP:RS
> - Using hardcopy and online resources, (WP:Citing sources)
>
> Any thoughts, comments, offers to work on the project. Is anybody else
> already doing something along these lines?
>
> Regards
>
> Paul Foord
>
>
>
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-- 
GN.
President Wikimedia Australia
WMAU: http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/User:Gnangarra
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